Speaking of 'Blood and Chrome,' by the way, I talked to Syfy exec Mark Stern when I was at San Diego Comic Con in July. Stern, Syfy's executive vice president of original programming, said that executives at the network have seen a rough cut of the two-hour 'Blood and Chrome' TV movie, which follows the journey of a young William Adama in the first Cylon War. However not many of the effects in that cut have been completed (most of 'Blood and Chrome' was shot in front of green screens, and many backgrounds and visual effects are being added).

Given the amount of work still being done on 'Blood and Chrome' (which was written by 'BSG' scribe Michael Taylor and will act as a possible pilot for a TV series), it sounds as though 'Blood and Chrome' is still something of a work in progress and an announcement about a release date is not particularly imminent. Stern said Syfy is still weighing whether to release this combat-oriented 'BSG' prequel as an online series (which was the original plan back when the project was first commissioned) or to bring it to air as a backdoor pilot, which is still a possibility.

Honestly, I've 'scanned' the internet; there is NOTHING on this pilot. I've never seen a BSG project (even Glen Larson, Bryan Singer-remake idle chatter) get so LITTLE press... especially for a project that was actually SHOT and in the can (back in what, March??)! Seriously, are the publicity people on this all dead (or airlocked) or what???

My guess is that the final product must've been so disappointing that the studio is just seeking to quietly bury it....
Even at the Comic Con BSG panel (with one of the stars of B&C) there were NO clips to present... not good!

Interests:2015 - The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Hell on Wheels, Fear The Walking Dead

Posted 10 October 2011 - 07:27 PM

obsolete toaster, on 10 October 2011 - 07:00 AM, said:

Maybe "Blood & Chrome" should be retitled "Crash & Burn?"

Honestly, I've 'scanned' the internet; there is NOTHING on this pilot. I've never seen a BSG project (even Glen Larson, Bryan Singer-remake idle chatter) get so LITTLE press... especially for a project that was actually SHOT and in the can (back in what, March??)! Seriously, are the publicity people on this all dead (or airlocked) or what???

My guess is that the final product must've been so disappointing that the studio is just seeking to quietly bury it....
Even at the Comic Con BSG panel (with one of the stars of B&C) there were NO clips to present... not good!

Comic Con seemed like a one off without ANY knowledge of this. No chatter = dead product.

Comic Con seemed like a one off without ANY knowledge of this. No chatter = dead product.

It's kind of sad that if it is stillborn, we aren't going to ever see it. Even on Youtube, I haven't seen authentic, leaked footage yet. I'm just a little perturbed that we (as BSG fans) aren't being given the opportunity to decide for ourselves if it sucks or not. I mean, it's completed; it's in the can. What further harm could be done by screening it (even as a SyFy/Space channel one-night movie)? Personally, I think that replacing the sets with CGI versions is probably one of the bigger hang-ups the production is having. CGI is not quite ready to fully replace real, tangible, physical sets yet (especially for a show as gritty and 'real' as BSG). BSG has had CGI set extensions many times (the hanger bay, the engine room, etc), but for a set that cast members are going to interact with on a regular basis? I look at the new "V" and the Star Wars prequels as examples of how CGI sets are just NOT there yet...

And from what the "Blood and Chrome" actress Lili Borden said at the Comic Con panel, pretty much the WHOLE show is being done on green screen. She said most times they didn't even have an idea of what they were interacting with until they saw video dailies later on.

OK, it's been almost a month since the last post on B&C ... has anyone heard ANYTHING new on Blood & Chrome???
I know I sure as hell haven't. I'm starting to think the only copy is locked up in a London Towers' style dungeon somewhere on the grounds of the SyFy executive offices...

I have a feeling it's an ugly, mutated stepchild that SyFy is really embarrassed of at this point.
First, it was to be a series of webisodes, then TV pilot, then back to the web, then direct to blu-ray/dvd. My gut tells me it's really bad.
Here's hoping (as a BSG fan) that my gut feeling is wrong.

our current project is the pilot Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome. How did that go, and in what ways, technologically speaking, does it push the envelope?
Drexler: It's huge. I worked with Gary Hutzel, who once again is our visual effects supervisor. He is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We had a blast. In one very important way it was different from anything else I’ve ever worked on. The entire show was green screen. There were no sets. This happened because of the shape of the economy. Building sets for a television show like TNG or the last Battlestar Galactica is just prohibitively expensive. No one wants to take that chance. Besides, the way the networks have been doing business lately, it’s kind of bizarre. They’ll cancel a show after one episode. If a show doesn’t perform right out of the gate, they cancel it. In the day when you thought a show would be kept on the air for a year, you might take a chance because you think it will develop an audience over time. With the current network mindset, there’s no chance of building an audience, when after one or two episodes, it's canceled. It’s just impossible. So, they want make a show as inexpensively as possible, so if it’s canceled after one or two episodes, no one gets their head chopped off.

That certainly upped the ante on Blood and Chrome and put a lot more responsibility on you…
Drexler: Oh, yeah. And we love it. That's where we live. The way things used to be, on DS9, Enterprise or Voyager, we’d get a shot list, and we'd stick strictly to the shot list. You’d do your job and they’d plug the VFX sequences in. Now, on Blood and Chrome, with the visual effects department building practically the entire show, we naturally have broader responsibilities. We’re not just creating a plug-in visual effect... a ship flying from left to right. We take an active part telling the story. We’re art-directing the show, and building the sets. It's very fluid and adaptable. We’re lighting and framing the shots as well. Every scene the actors are in, the DP on stage is lighting, but once we get it, we create the atmosphere and the visual direction. That all falls to us. We’re practically producers, because we’re responsible for so much.

What’s next on the Blood and Chrome front?
Drexler: We’ll see whether or not it goes to series. We’re hoping it does, and we should know in February. Decisions are never made over the holidays.

They've had this for a while - unless they've been constantly tinkering with it, the February line seems pointless.

By the time it airs in February (that's also the air month given by IMDB), it'll have been wrapped and in post for a year! Come on... that's more like a movie's post schedule than a TV show's. Something tells me the CGI sets are looking pretty crappy and need a lot of work....